Lil Nas X enters his Christian era

Modern Relics is the newsletter that puts religion in a cannon and pop culture in another cannon and shoots them at each other and it goes something like this:

I am aware that this photo ultimately had a very sad outcome, but also if this newsletter manifested itself in a physical form it would look something like that.

Lil Nas X enters “Christian era”?

Lil Nas X just posted this video to X, saying, “y’all mind if i enter my christian era ?” He's also changed the name of his account to a "✟" symbol. In the video he wears a shirt that says "If God doesn't exist, then who's laughing at us?"

For those without X accounts, the lyrics:

Father stretch my hands, the lonely road seems to last the longest, help me with my plans, everything seems to go to nowhere. Oh free me from worry and wanting pity, free me from all this envy in me. I don't want these feelings. I don't want these feelings.

I call on angels. I'm trying hard to face my pain, yeah. Give me hope when I feel — give me hope when I feel less. Angels, I'm trying hard to keep my faith, yeah.

It's not super surprising; Lil Nas X (Montero Lamar Hill) grew up Christian, and his father is a gospel singer. Hill's last album uses a lot of religious imagery. The "MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)" music video and associated Satan shoes controversy was specifically engineered to troll conservative Christians, but there's more there than just rage bait.

I've always appreciated Hill's song writing and how obviously familiar he is with the imagery he plays with, so I'm really looking forward to his Christian era, no matter what it turns out to be.

Thank you to my husband who texted me about this so I would definitely see it.

Henry Kissinger died

The religious people I follow online do not like Henry Kissinger.

A recommendation: Ruth Graham's Bluesky account

Ruth Graham is a national correspondent at the New York Times covering religion, faith and values. She does excellent reporting on things like the removal of Joseph Strickland from his position as Bishop of Tyler in eastern Texas and the Southern Baptist's ongoing sex abuse scandal.

She also has a delightful social media presence that, as a religion specialist myself, I vibe with in a big way.

Are these too niche? Too specific to my own experience? When I saw them I did a big Leo DiCaprio point.

Some videos for your consideration

Is Catholic horror its own genre?

One of my more popular recent editions of Relics was this one about how Hollywood horror films have shifted over time along with the religious demographics of the United States, and how the Catholic Church is no longer presented as unambiguously heroic.

This YouTube video by Yhara Zayd takes a look at Catholic horror as a genre of horror in and of itself. She examines recent (bad) horror films like The Exorcist: Believer and The Nun II, but also some foreign and independent films.

Christian video games exist — why are there no good ones?

One of my personal favourite editions of Relics is this very early one about Christian video games. A lot of Christian media is bad — especially the video games — and it’s always been a bit of a mystery to me as to why. There’s no inherent reason Christian art has to suck, and in the past it’s been some of the best art there is! So what’s the deal?

This YouTube video by Moon Channel argues that Christian video games are (almost) universally bad because American Protestantism is particularly puritanical and focussed on work. Video games are seen as a moral ill and a distraction from other, more productive pursuits like education or earning a wage. Therefore, for a video game to be attractive to a(n American) Christian audience, it must be educational and morally didactic, deliberately at the expense of being fun. “For a game to be Christian in the American Christian sense it almost has to be bad”.

Looking at this list of Christian video games on Wikipedia, the few recent titles appear to be Bible trivia games or interactive retellings of biblical stories, none of which I’m going to rush out and play. The one Christian game that gets a thumbs up from Moon is That Dragon, Cancer, from American indie developer Numinous Games.

Personally, I think there must be other factors at play other than American puritanism and the Protestant work ethic, or else you’d see more than one good indie Christian game being released, especially outside the US, but I think he's on to something.

Jesus games

Keeping on a theme, this video by Caddicarus claims to be a review of every Jesus game he could find.

I haven’t watched the whole thing because it goes for over an hour!

God’s cool

Adrian Bliss biblical TikTok compilation

I've occasionally included Adrian Bliss' Bible TikToks in this newsletter, and now he's uploaded a handy compilation of all of them to YouTube! Thank you Adrian Bliss.

And thank you to Moose for putting it in the Modern Relics Discord.

Grok is from Stranger in a Strange Land

Elon Musk's "sassy, foul-mouthed AI" Grok is named after a concept from Robert A Heinlein's 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land. "To grok" means to understand something so thoroughly, "you merge with it and it merges with you". Why is this interesting?

Stranger in a Strange Land is the book that inspired the world's most popular invented religion, the Church of All Worlds. I made an episode of Soul Search in 2022 interviewing Carole Cusack, who has studied this group extensively.

The church's leaders, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart were hugely influential in Neopaganism and the polyamory movement, and — much weirder — created unicorns by surgically manipulating the horn buds of baby goats.

Stranger in a Strange Land and the "grok" concept have been popular with programmers since the early days of modern computing. Even today mystical beliefs are not uncommon among Silicon Valley knowledge workers. For example, the "AI is actually alive" whistleblower Blake Lemoine considers himself a Gnostic Christian.

I'm not at all suggesting that Elon Musk is a devotee of the Church of All Worlds, but the name of his AI reminded me that the tech industry — far from being an oasis of scientific rationality — is deeply influenced by the esoteric and spiritual.

An apology!

Hey sorry for missing last week's edition, I was doing a bit of writing for a D&D campaign I'm running, and as it turns out I only have space in my brain to write one thing at a time. I'm aiming to finish the year off strongly, then take a few weeks off during silly season and come back with lots more content in 2024. But, you know, sometimes things happen. Anyway I will see you next week!